


In Partial Communion

by stevieraebarnes



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Grayson (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Agent 37 - Freeform, Amnesiac Bruce Wayne, Canonical Character (Un)Death, Gen, New 52, Spyral, Stalker Tim Drake, jaydick_flashfic: atonement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 02:46:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevieraebarnes/pseuds/stevieraebarnes
Summary: Jason checks in with a drifting Batfamily after receiving anonymous gifts.Dick makes his apologies to Jason for dying the only way he can:In secret.





	In Partial Communion

**Author's Note:**

> Set in New 52 with amnesiac Bruce Wayne and dead-to-the-public (including the batfam) Dick Grayson. Really I just wanted Dick as Agent 37 and most of canon is disregarded or patched up differently lol

Dick Grayson was dead, to begin with.

Jason knew this; he had seen the footage. And even though he didn’t often trust video evidence, he trusted the gob-smacked look of incomprehension on the Bat brat’s face when the news was bestowed upon his tiny shoulders. Jason might have thought the look on Damian comical, if he hadn’t known the context: that it was Dick’s death reaching out like a ghost to those who knew and loved him.

The face haunts him now. Sometimes, he thinks he might wear the same look of horrified revelation over the knowledge that a beloved, multiversal constant could be stamped out.

And if Damian Wayne’s shock over the news wasn’t enough to convert Jason into a believer, then the figurative nail in the coffin was certainly the tear track he saw drip cheek to chin of the Bat’s resident IQ show off. As soon as Jason saw Tim Drake sitting in front of a monitor, with eyes too bright and shiny and voice thick with choked off emotional pain -- working on a case that was _not in search of Dick Grayson_ \-- that was the day Jason decided everything was too real. Too shocking. Too dull.

 

* * *

 

Dick Grayson was dead and buried thirty days when the first one arrived.

Jason returned to Gotham after a week chasing a lead out of town, closing the door of his favorite apartment in the hopes of peace. The apartment had a real kitchen, a bed with a good mattress, and a view of the city. From the window, Jason could look out and comfort himself by finding his favorite gargoyle, still protecting its building despite the amount of destruction the city saw. Jason took a glance out the window, found his old friend, and moved on.

He made his way to his bedroom where he spotted it immediately. It sat innocently atop the carefully made bed, corners tucked and top sheet turned down over the comforter. He moved closer and plucked the slip of white paper from his bed, reading the words printed in unnatural uniformity of weirdly blended ink colors. Jason briefly considered a printer running out of ink, but the thought barely registered against what he saw before him.

The paper’s instructions yielded four servings of his favorite chili dogs from the pier he would sneak out to visit when he was a child.

 

* * *

 

“Aren’t you going to have a bite? It’s delicious.”

Tim’s chili dog was half gone, orange sauce smeared on his upper lip. He stood in Jason’s kitchen holding a plate in one hand and his food in the other. He was in his street clothes and his long hair was swept back in a haphazard way, like he’d been absentmindedly combing his fingers through it all day. He had kept himself busy these six weeks since the news.

Jason leaned against the refrigerator. “Why are you here?”

“You said you were making food and I was hungry.” Tim took another bite.

“I only told you that after you interrogated me over the phone.”

“I saw you on CCTV buying groceries. They looked like a delicious combo.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at the youth. “Of course you did.”

“This is seriously the best chili I’ve ever had.” Tim stuffed the rest in his mouth, then made his way to the sink. He turned on the tap and began to violently wash his hands, flinging water in every direction before working at the stain of sauce on his mouth, despite the look of judgement on Jason’s face. Tim dried his hands on a hand towel draped over the oven’s handle, but wiped away the water on his face with his shirt sleeve. Jason winced.

“I can’t believe you were able to recreate your favorite food.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Jason replied, then tilted his head at Tim’s statement. “How’d you know this was my favorite food?”

“Dick told me awhile ago.” Tim said, then peered into the pot on the stove. “There’s still a lot here.” He gave it a stir with the wooden spoon left to sink into the thick depths. “Mind if I take some back with me?”

Jason opened a cabinet and pointed to a stack of washed out glass jars and screw top lids, still lost in thought.

 

* * *

 

A month after Jason found the recipe on his bed, he found two tickets to a Gotham Knight’s game stashed in his jacket pocket.

He knew he had passed several people on the street. One of them -- a man, Jason thought -- of familiar stature, but none seemed of charitable intentions. They had merely slipped by each other, lost in thought or purpose.

Jason inspected the tickets. They were crisp and new, with a bold, colorful image of a player in uniform beneath the denoted matchup.

He hadn’t thought about the Knights in years, not since he’d died and returned to the living. He’d had a cap and a jersey as a kid and when he wasn’t in awe of Wayne Manor, with its endless rooms of art and books, he would wear his Knights hat and shirt around the estate to test what Bruce would do. In those early days, Jason had figured the bright colors and lack of collar went against the Wayne aesthetics and he pushed against those boundaries at moments of fancy. Instead, Bruce’s face had lit up in recognition of a topic to discuss, of common ground between him and his new ward. After observing Jason wear the gear a few times, he offered to take him to a game, explaining that he held season tickets.

“Any time you want,” Bruce had said. “Just ask.”

 

* * *

 

“C’mon! Live a little!”

Dick had found Jason later that day on his own and used the opportunity to chide him. “Bruce offered to take you to a game. So go!”

“We’re pretty busy, and I’m still learning, uh, to be--”

“To be Robin?” Dick had supplied.

 _To be you_ , Jason had thought.

“Alright. But if you don’t take Bruce up on his offer, then I’m buying tickets myself and taking you with me. And we’ll finally have a chance to spend some time together, eating disgusting ballpark food.”

“I do like chili dogs,” Jason had offered.

“Oh, yeah? Me too. Not sure how good these will be though at the stadium.”

“The best are at Ocean City.”

“The boardwalk or…”

“Yeah, the boardwalk.”

“Huh. Not something I’d think to associate with you.”

“Well, you don’t know me,” Jason had huffed.

“True. Well that settles it. We’re going to a game, okay? I’ve got some Titans stuff to deal with and then it’s you and me in bleacher seats.”

Dick had left the manor soon after his promise, leaving Jason feeling more accepted than before. But the feeling would fade every month that went by with only a few appearances by Nightwing on vigilante business. Dick had forgotten his promise. And then Jason was dead.

 

* * *

 

By the time Jason made it to the youth center, it was two days later, tickets still in his jacket pocket. He recognized the man he had come for immediately, despite the change in demeanor, despite the weight of Gotham’s safety no longer strapped to his back for him to carry around. Bruce Wayne stood with his shirt sleeves rolled up, face fully bearded, and paint stains on his shirt.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Jason held out his hand. “Hi. I have a gift for you actually.”

Bruce shook his hand, but his face remained puzzled. “For me? Or for the Center?”

“For you, actually. And a friend.” Jason pulled out the tickets. “They’re for a Knights game. Thought you might want to experience more of the city you live in. Find out what you like and don’t like.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“They’re, uh, bleacher seats,” Jason said, Bruce’s civilized manners making him squirm.

Bruce took the tickets and examined them. “Are you a friend of Mr. Sparrow?”

“Who?”

“Someone I knew from before, apparently.”

“Oh. Sorry. Never heard of him.”

Jason looked around the room. Tables littered with paper and art supplies furnished the room, while kids of various ages came and went from the area with ceaseless chatter.

“Enjoy the tickets, okay?” He gave a nod and a half smile, then turned for the exit.

“Wait,” Bruce called out. “These two tickets here...are you sure you don’t want them yourself? You've probably got someone you’d want to take.”

Jason stopped, then straightened his shoulders and looked back at his old mentor, his old enemy, his old friend. “Nah,” he said. “The only person I wanted to go with is gone.”

He left then. There was nothing else to say to a man who couldn’t remember.

 

* * *

 

Dick Grayson had been six feet under for almost half a year and snow was sticking in the Gotham streets when he caught a glimpse of the suspect.

He felt a brush of clothing against him, a normal pedestrian movement as he walked the downtown streets with others, most of them leaving their jobs for the day. It happened several times a day: someone not aware of their surroundings until the last minute and then barely able to escape colliding into another body without injury. Nothing to it.

Except this nonchalant encounter was so precise, that it felt to Jason more methodical than accidental. The extra weight in his pocket was also rather noticeable.

“Why are people sticking random junk in my jacket pockets?” Jason pulled out the item to see a pair of ski gloves connected together by a small plastic lobster clasp. He whipped his head back and forth briefly, until he spotted a man in a long, navy blue puffy jacket just off the sidewalk curb, crossing the street.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Take your gloves back!”

The man didn’t look, but for as familiar as his gait was, what little Jason could see of his face made him almost feel sick to his stomach with how generic it was. He tried to recall details, but all he could focus on was how his mind seemed to spiral as he fought to concentrate.

He stopped concentrating and instead shouted, “I’m already wearing gloves, you weirdo!”, his anger getting the better of him as the man in the long coat and strange face made it to the other side of the street and was lost in the evening crowd.

He turned the gloves over in his own gloved hands, examining what he was given. They were black ski gloves, with electric blue stitching and a matte silver B logo on the top of each one. The memory came back to him, slowly at first, and then like a freight train hitting him square in the chest as he remembered the ski trip. He had been woefully unprepared for a trip to the mountains and the greatest of sins had been committed: he had forgotten to pack gloves.

Dick had shared his ski gloves with him, black with blue stitching and a silver B. It made Jason laugh to see the color scheme so publicly displayed. He’d asked if the B stood for Batman.

“This time, the B stands for Burton,” Dick had said.

They had divided the gloves up, Dick wearing the outer glove shells while Jason wore the soft liners before they found a ski shop and got Jason his own pair.

“They’re not as good as yours,” Jason had complained.

“What’s wrong with these?”

“They feel colder. Stiffer. Kinda scratchy.”

“Mine are just well worn, Jay.”

“Fine.”

Over the weekend, Dick had traded his gloves for Jason’s. But when they packed up at the end of their trip, Dick’s gloves went back into Dick’s bag and headed home to Blüdhaven. He didn’t remember what had happened to his own gloves that Dick had bought him.

Jason, still on the Gotham streets, took off one of his own gloves to feel the inside of the black and blue pair. He considered that perhaps his mind was tricking him. Or that something was haunting him.

But the liners were still inside, just as soft as he remembered.

 

* * *

 

The final time, the collision on the streets was on purpose.

Dick was dead eight months and Jason was alive and in need of food. This time, he wanted something that wasn’t chili. He’d already made the recipe five times since its appearance on his bed. Jason was mentally going through his list of things to buy at the grocer’s when he felt the impact.

A hand gripped his elbow, as though to steady both of them. But then the other person leaned in, to whisper in his ear.

“I’m sorry, Jay. I know this is going to be worse on you than the rest of them.”

“Excuse me?”

The man pulled him in close, restraining Jason’s arms at his side and pressing his warm body against his own. Jason couldn’t tell if he was being subdued or hugged. At the moment, it felt like both.

“Just remember that I’m sorry. And when I’m officially back, I’ll make it up to you for real. I never wanted to lie to you, especially about this. But I also want you to know that I have no regrets about it, only about not being there for you. I remember the promises I didn’t keep. I’m sorry.”

As Jason tried to make sense of the words (yet he knew, _he knew_ ), the man kissed his temple, then released him and ran off.

Jason stood there, unmoving. He made no effort to chase the man down. His hidden knives remained sheathed. The kiss to the side of his head lingered and Jason stood there, cataloguing the incident, remembering another kiss, just like this one.

It had felt exactly the same. The same amount of pressure, the same feeling of surprisingly soft, full lips against him, the same desperate gesture of safety and worry imprinted onto him. The first time Jason had felt that kiss, he had just fought the Scarecrow as Robin. Bruce had not been a comfort at the time, considering he’d had a cameo in Jason’s fear toxin-induced nightmares. But Jason had found comfort in the arms of Dick Grayson, who had witnessed the tail end of the event as Nightwing. Back at the Cave, Dick had quickly shed the Nightwing persona to hold a sobbing Jason until the effects wore off. They did, eventually, and Dick had bestowed a parting kiss on his temple, brushing aside his unruly hair to meet Jason’s skin.

And now, with his life in disarray, and again no Batman to comfort him, Jason felt the ghost of Dick Grayson linger across his body.

He reached up to gingerly touch at his temple, slight moisture remaining. He could try to run an organics analysis. There was barely a sample on his person and what little he had would be destroyed by the methods. But it didn’t matter. There would be no running of equipment. There would be no search for truth, or for how, or for why. For eight months Dick Grayson had been dead and today he was alive. Jason felt settled, and that maybe he had known for awhile who the gifts were from these past months. Jason began to walk again, his hope of a promise kept growing with each step.

He had things to do before he told Dickie he was forgiven.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the jaydick flashfic prompt “Atonement”. I wanted to explore Dick atoning for pretending to be dead for Spyral, and for not being there more when Jason was Robin. You can find Dick's spyral run in Grayson and Bruce's time as an amnesiac in Scott Snyder's main Batman run, post Endgame volumes of you're interested in what canon offers.
> 
> The first line of this work comes from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, since I thought it fit the tone well. Apparently I'm in a Christmas-y mood xD
> 
> Unbeta'd, written in a flash, and a perfect way to get the words flowing. Thank you, mods!
> 
> My [tumblr](https://stevieraebarnes.tumblr.com/)


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